Pre-RFC: Rust version of __attribute(used)__ (GCC) or llvm.used (LLVM).
#1002
Comments
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Please??? :D |
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I need this feature as well. Is there any way to achieve this with latest rust-release? Do you know about #1459 |
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@frehberg Do you talk about function? You can use pub and it won't be removed. |
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@KalitaAlexey I don't believe statics are afforded the same protection. |
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@ubsan Anything exported can't ever be removed, so all you have to do is make it reachable from outside the crate. I'm not sure, but |
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@eddyb Then I'm not sure what the point of |
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@ubsan It probably works on internal/private items, to keep them alive despite them not being exported. |
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@eddyb ... weird. |
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I don't think people understand this topic fully. First in embedded system, there are tricks, like creating an array of things, by just putting them in the same executable section. This symbols will not referenced anywhere explicitly. But they must keep being in the section. Second it's not about symbols between crates/libraries. It's about LTO removing stuff during final linking optimization. These symbols are not referenced anywhere explicitly so optimizer can remove them. The code, at runtime will go from the start to the section to the end, read the memory in the given section and do something with all the To be able to do that, the symbols need to be marked as used, otherwise LTO will remove them. That is the purpose of |
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@dpc Ah, 'k, that makes sense. |
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@dpc You can't use noop volatile assembly capturing the address of the global? |
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@eddyb: Nothing will reference that noop volatile assembly and LTO will remove that, and then the thing it referenced. :) |
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@dpc I don't believe volatile assembly can be removed, although I may be wrong. |
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The |
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@dpc Whereas llvm.used will work even from dead code, or something? |
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@eddyb Yes. The |
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Oh, I wish someone had linked to the documentation for |
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My use case is: I want to place a buildtag string onto the main-stack of the process, so it will appear in any core-dumps and can be extracted from core-dump. So far un-used string variables within main() are eliminated, so I have got to println it to keep it on the stack (any hint helpful). Code might look like: fn main() { Any idea, how I could get away with the println but keep the variable buildtag on the stack? |
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@frehberg Since you have non-dead code that you use the value from, you could use inline assembly to force LLVM to keep a variable alive. Alternatively, a noop C function via FFI. |
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I am in need of this feature as well. As @dpc mentioned I need this for my embedded systems. I've tried the workarounds in this comment, but none worked. Do the powers that be understand the use case here? |
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I've send a PR implementing this in rust-lang/rust#39987. I'd like to hear about what use cases people have in mind for this (apart from the one mentioned in the PR description). Please leave a comment on that PR. |
[RFC] #[used] attribute
(For an explanation of what this feature does, read the commit message)
I'd like to propose landing this as an experimental feature (experimental as in:
no clear stabilization path -- like `asm!`, `#[linkage]`) as it's low
maintenance (I think) and relevant to the "Usage in resource-constrained
environments" exploration area.
The main use case I see is running code before `main`. This could be used, for
instance, to cheaply initialize an allocator before `main` where the alternative
is to use `lazy_static` to initialize the allocator on its first use which it's
more expensive (atomics) and doesn't work on ARM Cortex-M0 microcontrollers (no
`AtomicUsize` on that platform)
Here's a `std` example of that:
``` rust
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_1() {
println!("Hello");
}
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_2() {
println!("World");
}
static INIT_ARRAY: [unsafe extern "C" fn(); 2] = [before_main_1, before_main_2];
fn main() {
println!("Goodbye");
}
```
```
$ rustc -C lto -C opt-level=3 before_main.rs
$ ./before_main
Hello
World
Goodbye
```
In general, this pattern could be used to let *dependencies* run code before
`main` (which sounds like it could go very wrong in some cases). There are
probably other use cases; I hope that the people I have cc-ed can comment on
those.
Note that I'm personally unsure if the above pattern is something we want to
promote / allow and that's why I'm proposing this feature as experimental. If
this leads to more footguns than benefits then we can just axe the feature.
cc @nikomatsakis ^ I know you have some thoughts on having a process for
experimental features though I'm fine with writing an RFC before landing this.
- `dead_code` lint will have to be updated to special case `#[used]` symbols.
- Should we extend `#[used]` to work on non-generic functions?
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1002
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1459
cc @dpc @JinShil
[RFC] #[used] attribute
(For an explanation of what this feature does, read the commit message)
I'd like to propose landing this as an experimental feature (experimental as in:
no clear stabilization path -- like `asm!`, `#[linkage]`) as it's low
maintenance (I think) and relevant to the "Usage in resource-constrained
environments" exploration area.
The main use case I see is running code before `main`. This could be used, for
instance, to cheaply initialize an allocator before `main` where the alternative
is to use `lazy_static` to initialize the allocator on its first use which it's
more expensive (atomics) and doesn't work on ARM Cortex-M0 microcontrollers (no
`AtomicUsize` on that platform)
Here's a `std` example of that:
``` rust
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_1() {
println!("Hello");
}
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_2() {
println!("World");
}
static INIT_ARRAY: [unsafe extern "C" fn(); 2] = [before_main_1, before_main_2];
fn main() {
println!("Goodbye");
}
```
```
$ rustc -C lto -C opt-level=3 before_main.rs
$ ./before_main
Hello
World
Goodbye
```
In general, this pattern could be used to let *dependencies* run code before
`main` (which sounds like it could go very wrong in some cases). There are
probably other use cases; I hope that the people I have cc-ed can comment on
those.
Note that I'm personally unsure if the above pattern is something we want to
promote / allow and that's why I'm proposing this feature as experimental. If
this leads to more footguns than benefits then we can just axe the feature.
cc @nikomatsakis ^ I know you have some thoughts on having a process for
experimental features though I'm fine with writing an RFC before landing this.
- `dead_code` lint will have to be updated to special case `#[used]` symbols.
- Should we extend `#[used]` to work on non-generic functions?
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1002
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1459
cc @dpc @JinShil
(For an explanation of what this feature does, read the commit message)
I'd like to propose landing this as an experimental feature (experimental as in:
no clear stabilization path -- like `asm!`, `#[linkage]`) as it's low
maintenance (I think) and relevant to the "Usage in resource-constrained
environments" exploration area.
The main use case I see is running code before `main`. This could be used, for
instance, to cheaply initialize an allocator before `main` where the alternative
is to use `lazy_static` to initialize the allocator on its first use which it's
more expensive (atomics) and doesn't work on ARM Cortex-M0 microcontrollers (no
`AtomicUsize` on that platform)
Here's a `std` example of that:
``` rust
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_1() {
println!("Hello");
}
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_2() {
println!("World");
}
static INIT_ARRAY: [unsafe extern "C" fn(); 2] = [before_main_1, before_main_2];
fn main() {
println!("Goodbye");
}
```
```
$ rustc -C lto -C opt-level=3 before_main.rs
$ ./before_main
Hello
World
Goodbye
```
In general, this pattern could be used to let *dependencies* run code before
`main` (which sounds like it could go very wrong in some cases). There are
probably other use cases; I hope that the people I have cc-ed can comment on
those.
Note that I'm personally unsure if the above pattern is something we want to
promote / allow and that's why I'm proposing this feature as experimental. If
this leads to more footguns than benefits then we can just axe the feature.
cc @nikomatsakis ^ I know you have some thoughts on having a process for
experimental features though I'm fine with writing an RFC before landing this.
- `dead_code` lint will have to be updated to special case `#[used]` symbols.
- Should we extend `#[used]` to work on non-generic functions?
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1002
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1459
cc @dpc @JinShil
(For an explanation of what this feature does, read the commit message)
I'd like to propose landing this as an experimental feature (experimental as in:
no clear stabilization path -- like `asm!`, `#[linkage]`) as it's low
maintenance (I think) and relevant to the "Usage in resource-constrained
environments" exploration area.
The main use case I see is running code before `main`. This could be used, for
instance, to cheaply initialize an allocator before `main` where the alternative
is to use `lazy_static` to initialize the allocator on its first use which it's
more expensive (atomics) and doesn't work on ARM Cortex-M0 microcontrollers (no
`AtomicUsize` on that platform)
Here's a `std` example of that:
``` rust
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_1() {
println!("Hello");
}
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_2() {
println!("World");
}
static INIT_ARRAY: [unsafe extern "C" fn(); 2] = [before_main_1, before_main_2];
fn main() {
println!("Goodbye");
}
```
```
$ rustc -C lto -C opt-level=3 before_main.rs
$ ./before_main
Hello
World
Goodbye
```
In general, this pattern could be used to let *dependencies* run code before
`main` (which sounds like it could go very wrong in some cases). There are
probably other use cases; I hope that the people I have cc-ed can comment on
those.
Note that I'm personally unsure if the above pattern is something we want to
promote / allow and that's why I'm proposing this feature as experimental. If
this leads to more footguns than benefits then we can just axe the feature.
cc @nikomatsakis ^ I know you have some thoughts on having a process for
experimental features though I'm fine with writing an RFC before landing this.
- `dead_code` lint will have to be updated to special case `#[used]` symbols.
- Should we extend `#[used]` to work on non-generic functions?
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1002
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1459
cc @dpc @JinShil
#[used] attribute
(For an explanation of what this feature does, read the commit message)
I'd like to propose landing this as an experimental feature (experimental as in:
no clear stabilization path -- like `asm!`, `#[linkage]`) as it's low
maintenance (I think) and relevant to the "Usage in resource-constrained
environments" exploration area.
The main use case I see is running code before `main`. This could be used, for
instance, to cheaply initialize an allocator before `main` where the alternative
is to use `lazy_static` to initialize the allocator on its first use which it's
more expensive (atomics) and doesn't work on ARM Cortex-M0 microcontrollers (no
`AtomicUsize` on that platform)
Here's a `std` example of that:
``` rust
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_1() {
println!("Hello");
}
unsafe extern "C" fn before_main_2() {
println!("World");
}
#[link_section = ".init_arary"]
#[used]
static INIT_ARRAY: [unsafe extern "C" fn(); 2] = [before_main_1, before_main_2];
fn main() {
println!("Goodbye");
}
```
```
$ rustc -C lto -C opt-level=3 before_main.rs
$ ./before_main
Hello
World
Goodbye
```
In general, this pattern could be used to let *dependencies* run code before
`main` (which sounds like it could go very wrong in some cases). There are
probably other use cases; I hope that the people I have cc-ed can comment on
those.
Note that I'm personally unsure if the above pattern is something we want to
promote / allow and that's why I'm proposing this feature as experimental. If
this leads to more footguns than benefits then we can just axe the feature.
cc @nikomatsakis ^ I know you have some thoughts on having a process for
experimental features though I'm fine with writing an RFC before landing this.
- `dead_code` lint will have to be updated to special case `#[used]` symbols.
- Should we extend `#[used]` to work on non-generic functions?
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1002
cc rust-lang/rfcs#1459
cc @dpc @JinShil
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Thanks @japaric for implementing this! I'd love to see this feature stabilized, as |
Centril
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There come times when rust symbols are referenced only by external assembler, sometimes in not-trivial way. It seems rustc is eager to remove them (even making them public does not help).
In clang and gcc there are ways to prevent it:
__attribute__((used))andllvm.usedIt seems there is currently no way to force rust to retain a symbol? Can it be added?
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